Kendo Marketing Director, UK
About Kendo
Kendo is a San Francisco–based beauty brand developer and incubator owned by LVMH Moët Hennessy — Louis Vuitton. The house builds and scales digitally native and retail-first beauty maisons (including Fenty Beauty, Fenty Skin, Fenty Hair and Ole Henriksen), combining rapid product development, cultural storytelling and global retail partnerships across both Sephora and selective retail channels.
Kendo (LVMH) seeks a Marketing Director in London to lead UK marketing for Fenty, Ole Henriksen and related brands.
Role & Responsibilities
- Lead, develop and inspire a high-performing UK marketing organisation spanning brand marketing, retail marketing, influencer/PR and visual merchandising; manage ~14 people with 4 direct reports.
- Define and execute the UK marketing strategy across all brands, aligning local plans with global priorities while tailoring activity to UK & Ireland retailers.
- Act as brand guardian to ensure consistent, on‑brand messaging, identity and visual expression across all channels and touchpoints.
- Create and deliver disruptive 360° campaigns and first‑to‑market activations that build brand heat, cultural relevance and measurable conversion.
- Own and optimise the UK marketing budget to maximise growth, profitability and ROI; partner with commercial teams to align marketing with revenue and distribution objectives.
- Elevate in‑store and omnichannel performance through best‑in‑class visual merchandising, retail media and in‑store activations across pure players, department stores and high‑street beauty retailers.
- Oversee influencer and PR strategy, agency partners and innovative experiential programmes (immersions, trips, pop‑ups) to drive earned media and cultural impact.
- Partner closely with global HQ teams to secure alignment and sign‑off on localised campaigns, product development, store design and retail initiatives.
Qualifications
- Extensive senior marketing leadership experience within beauty, fashion or lifestyle brands.
- Proven track record of planning and delivering high‑impact, multi‑channel (360°) campaigns at scale with measurable business outcomes.
- Demonstrable commercial acumen: experience managing significant budgets, forecasting NPD impact and delivering ROI.
- Strong knowledge of the UK beauty and retail landscape, with established stakeholder management experience across retailers and agency partners.
- Exceptional communication and presentation skills; ability to influence at executive and cross‑functional levels.
- Demonstrable people leadership experience, including hiring, coaching and performance management of mid to large teams.
Skills
Experience
Minimum 5 years in senior marketing leadership roles within beauty, fashion or lifestyle brands, including direct responsibility for multi‑disciplinary teams, multi‑brand portfolios and substantial marketing budgets.
Education
Bachelor’s degree in marketing, business or a related discipline; MBA or equivalent advanced qualification preferred.
Workplace
The successful candidate will be located in London, England, UK.
Culture
Kendo operates at the intersection of creativity and commercial rigour, combining fast‑paced product development with bold storytelling. The environment is entrepreneurial and collaborative, with matrixed relationships across global HQ, brand teams and retail partners.
About Cerulean
Cerulean is the definitive career portal for the global luxury industry. We match exceptional professionals with exclusive opportunities at the world's most prestigious brands. From haute couture and fine watchmaking to prestige beauty, hospitality, and boutique retail, Cerulean centralises luxury employment to help you find the career for which you were destined.
Frequently Asked Questions
The luxury industry is characterised by a diverse and nuanced nomenclature. Esteemed houses frequently employ proprietary terminology, and even within a single organisation like Kendo, titles may vary across global markets to reflect local conventions. To ensure absolute clarity, Cerulean assigns a standardised, industry-coherent canonical title to every listing. However, it is worth noting that this role is functionally synonymous with «Head of Marketing — UK», «Country Marketing Director», «Brand Marketing Director», «Head of Brand & Communications», and other variations. Our sophisticated search architecture anticipates these variations, ensuring that inquiries using related terms will seamlessly yield the exact roles you desire.